


Moving On

by loves_books



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: F/M, Jean Innocent Appreciation Week, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 08:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3970801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loves_books/pseuds/loves_books
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you know, I think I’m actually going to miss those two?”</p>
<p>Jean Innocent's thoughts on her last day in Oxford.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moving On

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Jean Innocent Appreciation Week, with thanks to Wendymr for her advice, though I've worked on this a lot since it was last looked at and any remaining mistakes are entirely my fault.
> 
> Also, this fic will quite likely be made redundant when the new series starts, but I just couldn't resist!

“Do you know, I think I’m actually going to miss those two?”

Innocent watched with a smile as Lewis and Hathaway climbed out of their car in the car park below her window, clearly in the middle of a heated discussion judging by the expressions on their faces.

Behind her she heard DS Maddox take half a step closer. “Ma’am?” 

“Your boss and DI Lewis.” Another half step brought the young sergeant to her side. “The Chuckle Brothers.”

“I think they prefer ‘the Dynamic Duo’,” Maddox muttered, which startled a laugh out of Innocent. She’d heard them called far worse. “Sorry, Ma’am.”

Outside, Hathaway lit up a cigarette and slouched back against the car door as Lewis started to pace up and down in the nearly empty car park, hands gesturing every now and then. It was obvious they were completely focussed on each other, Hathaway’s eyes tracking the older man’s every move and Lewis always half-turned towards his former partner.

“I had another complaint about them. I was planning to leave it for my replacement to deal with, then I thought, well, he’s going to have more than enough time and opportunity to learn about those two and their… quirks. So I took it upon myself to reply, as one of my final acts.”

She’d resisted the temptation to be ‘clever’ in her reply, and instead had kept it short, sweet and entirely professional – the usual apologies for any offence caused, and a promise to discuss the matter with the officers in question to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. In this case, though, she actually saw little point in bringing it up with Laurel and Hardy down below, knowing it almost certainly would happen again. 

Though next time it wouldn’t be her problem, thank goodness.

“A complaint, Ma’am?”

Innocent turned away from the window and strode back across the room to her desk, and the overflowing boxes which sat on top. She was all packed and ready to go, her outstanding files ready and waiting for the new CS, and all her completed paperwork sent on to the relevant offices. These last two boxes contained her final few personal items – photos of her son and her family, a cactus which had seen better days, a few framed certificates and diplomas – all ready to travel with her to London and her eagerly-awaited new position, in her new office which apparently had a beautiful view of Tower Bridge. 

She slid a thin folder from the top box and tugged a single sheet out, offering it to Maddox with a smile. She’d decided to keep a copy, for old times’ sake, since it had made her laugh so hard she had snorted coffee across her laptop. 

“It felt a bit like déjà vu,” Innocent commented as she watched Hathaway’s DS read the email; Maddox had been present for the incident in question, and she would appreciate the comments. “One of many, many complaints I’ve had about the two of them over the years, from one of many Oxford academics who haven’t quite appreciated their attitudes.”

“’I found DI Lewis to be rude and facetious when he referred to the Romantic poets I study as ‘the guys in the band’,” Maddox quoted, a confused frown on her forehead. “’While DI Hathaway seemed nothing but amused at his colleague’s comments and refused to be drawn into the discussion’. I remember that, but I didn’t get it at the time either. I’m not sure I understand, Ma’am?”

“It’s a direct mirror image of a complaint from years back; they’ve been together long enough to have in-jokes, and I’ve been here long enough to understand some of them.” Innocent shook her head as she crossed back to the window and glanced down at her two officers. Hathaway was still slouched against the car, his long legs crossed at the ankle now as Lewis stood directly in front of him, mobile phone in hand. “Definitely a sign I need to move on. If I needed any more signs.”

“I know it’s an exciting new position for you, Ma’am, but you’ll be missed,” Maddox offered, and Innocent felt oddly touched. 

She nodded her thanks; she’d like to think she would be missed, just as she would certainly miss a lot of the staff here. On the other hand, she knew she’d ruffled more than a few feathers in her time, and not everyone would be sorry to see her moving on; she hadn’t taken the job to make friends, though she certainly thought she’d made changes for the better during her years here in Oxford.

“Time for a change all round, I feel,” she commented thoughtfully. “Your new CS has some interesting ideas, though I’m not at all sure what he’ll make of those two.” 

In all honesty, she wasn’t at all sure what he would make of the whole station, nor what the station would make of him. The new man wouldn’t have been her first choice of replacement; she’d only met him on a few occasions, but she’d found him painfully blunt and ruthlessly in favour of modernisation at almost all costs. If she’d ruffled feathers in her time, then the new CS might well start ripping them out by the handful. It would either work spectacularly well or set the whole team back years – only time would tell if it was a gamble worth taking.

“Do I even need to ask which two we’re discussing?” The unexpected voice spun Innocent back round from the window, and sure enough, Doctor Hobson was standing in the open office doorway, a bottle-shaped gift bag in her hands and a knowing smile on her face. “What’ve they done this time?”

“Just the usual.” With a wave of her hand she invited the doctor in, as Maddox glanced over, one eyebrow quirked in question. It was a confidential email in theory, but Innocent knew she could trust Hobson to keep it under her hat, and frankly she was curious to see the other woman’s reaction, so she nodded her permission. “Go ahead, Sergeant. Let the good doctor have a read.” 

Maddox handed the copy over and Hobson read it quickly, her smile growing wider. “Oh, Robbie,” she commented under her breath as she passed it back to Innocent, shaking her head. “You won’t miss dealing with them, I take it?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Life certainly has never been boring since the two of them paired up. In fact, I’ve often wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t sent Hathaway to meet Lewis at the airport that day.” 

Such a contrast in so many ways, the two of them. The team that never should have happened, let alone lasted as long as it had. She’d had plans to put the returning Inspector Lewis out to pasture, to have him training or possibly working on cold cases, and she’d thought Hathaway was rapidly on the way up to bigger and better things.

The then-Sergeant should have been following in her footsteps. Graduate entry, brilliant mind – he should have been headed straight for Inspector then Superintendent, maybe even Chief Constable one day. She’d seen him as the next generation, perhaps even as the man to take over from her eventually. He still could be all those things, of course, though he’d refused to even consider promotion for a long time, for reasons that still baffled Innocent.

Instead, Lewis and Hathaway had quickly become her most successful pair of detectives, and Innocent had always had to force herself not to look in too much detail at what had clearly become a strong partnership, both in and out of work. At the end of the day, results counted more than methods, as long their methodology didn’t give her too many headaches or complaints from frustrated academics to deal with.

At least she’d been able to keep Hathaway in the force, and see him through his long-overdue OSPRE. Bringing Lewis back from retirement had just been the icing on the cake, and it was a fitting end to her time here as Chief Superintendent. It would be up to their new boss to encourage Hathaway to go further still with his career – DCI should be an easy step up for him in the next few years, if he wanted it – and Innocent could only pray that Lewis wouldn’t retire again immediately at the first hint of ‘modernisation’.

The sound of Laura Hobson clearing her throat brought Innocent back into the room. “I’m afraid I might not be able to make it to the pub later, so I wanted to say ‘congratulations’ again, and to wish you all the best. The place really won’t be the same without you, Jean.”

“Thank you, Laura.” Innocent accepted the gift bag, peeking inside to see an excellent bottle of red wine. “I will miss it here, but it’s time for a new challenge, I think.” 

It was a challenge she was more than ready for, actually. More than that, it was a challenge she was truly excited about – a long-awaited transfer to the Met as Chief Superintendent, with the aim of becoming a Commander within the next five years, hopefully sooner. For quite some time she’d wanted to move up to London to tackle the bigger challenges there, and now, with her ever-patient Mr Innocent finally taking early retirement, the perfect opportunity had arisen, enabling them to make the move at last. 

She really would miss it here in Oxford, but at the same time she could hardly wait to get started. 

“Well, good luck with everything. Not that you’ll need it, of course; the Met are lucky to be getting their hands on you. And as for those two…” Hobson paused as she joined Maddox and Innocent at the window, and the three women looked down as Lewis and Hathaway started walking back towards the station’s main entrance, side by side and shoulder to shoulder. The doctor laughed softly under her breath before continuing, “The new Chief Super won’t know what he’s in for. Personally, I think they need a strong woman to keep them in line. Good luck with that, Lizzie.”

“Me?” Maddox looked startled for a moment then grimly determined. “I’ll see what I can do, I suppose.”

“You’ve certainly been good for them so far,” Innocent told the DS with a small smile. After a few understandable teething problems, Maddox really had proved to be the perfect match for Hathaway, and, by extension, Lewis as well – level-headed, intelligent, practical and no-nonsense. “You’ll have to keep an eye out for them as well, Laura. Even after, well…”

Hobson and Lewis had finally called time on their attempt at a relationship a few months earlier, and for a moment Innocent wondered if she should have mentioned it at all, though she didn’t think there were any lingering hard feelings on either side. Beside her, Hobson shrugged lightly, “Ah, we’re far better off as friends, I think. And, hopefully, it’ll finally give them the nudge they need to sort out whatever it is between the two of them.” 

“Laura!” Maddox sounded surprised, and cast a slightly worried look towards Innocent, who just laughed.

“Don’t worry, Sergeant. As of – ” She checked her watch quickly, nodded. “ – Seven minutes ago I am no longer their direct superior, or yours. And I can therefore agree with Doctor Hobson here that they really do need to get their acts together, preferably sooner rather than later.” 

There had been rumours about Lewis and Hathaway almost since day one, and Innocent had always done her best to either stop them dead or ignore them, though they had varied over the years as the pair’s working relationship and obvious friendship had developed and changed.

She was possibly reading too much into it. There might be nothing more going on than just a simple and close friendship between two difficult and lonely men, but at the same time she knew what she had glimpsed between them at times. Tiny gestures, mostly, things that few people would ever notice, but Jean Innocent was a bloody good detective. She noticed things, though she’d tried not to look.

Lewis’s hand resting on the small of Hathaway’s back, lingering for just a second too long. Hathaway watching Lewis interview a suspect, concentration morphing into obvious fondness for a brief moment before a blank mask would slam down to hide the emotion. The pair of them hiding in the corner at a work party, sitting side by side with their bodies pressed together from shoulder all the way to knee. The genuine smile Hathaway only ever seemed to direct at Lewis. The way the tension in Lewis’s shoulders seemed to ease when Hathaway entered a room. 

It had all stopped while Robbie had been with Laura, but those little signs had started to reappear as soon as he had become single again, and now Innocent watched as the two men reached the steps into the station, Lewis’s hand straying once again to Hathaway’s back as they disappeared from view.

No direct conflict of interest now, of course. The two men were no longer supervisor and subordinate, and they didn’t report directly to each other. Didn’t even officially work on the same team. Perhaps their new CS wouldn’t see any reason to be concerned, with all his ideas of modernisation and improvement – a relationship between two DIs wasn’t against regs, after all, just a particularly rare scenario and one that would have made Innocent want to keep a close eye on them, given how often they ended up gravitating towards each other’s cases.

It would be very interesting indeed to see what happened next for the two of them – for the whole station, in fact – and Innocent decided there and then that she’d be sure to keep her ear to the ground for any developments.

By her side, Maddox suddenly gave a theatrical shudder and turned away from the window. Innocent knew the young DS had to have noticed something unspoken between the two men; Lizzie Maddox was a bloody good detective herself, of course, but Innocent supposed it must almost be like thinking about your parents having sex – something you acknowledged might well happen, but not something you ever wanted to actually picture. 

Sure enough, with another smaller shiver, Maddox muttered, “I really don’t need the mental image of my boss and – well, my two bosses, I suppose – getting together like that. Far too much information for my liking!” 

Innocent exchanged a knowing look with a smirking Hobson as they turned away themselves. Perhaps it was time to take pity on Maddox, and time was actually threatening to get away with them all.

“And on that note, I should get these last boxes down to my car.” Innocent was expected at the pub in less than half an hour, for what promised to be a fairly epic send-off; she’d heard bits and pieces of what her team had planned, including rumours of karaoke and ‘surprise guests’. She wasn’t quite sure whether to be excited or scared. “Then the party awaits us.”

“I’ll help, Ma’am.” Maddox moved quickly to pick up the heavier of the two boxes before leaving the office with a final nod and a warm smile. “I’ll see you down there.”

Hobson held out her hand, and Innocent shook it briefly before letting herself be pulled in for a quick hug. She’d never worked directly with the pathologist, though their paths had crossed many times over the years, and she had nothing but respect for the other woman. “I’ve got to get to an urgent autopsy, I’m afraid. Good luck, Jean.”

“And to you, Laura.” 

And just like that, Innocent was left on her own in the office which was no longer hers. Never one for meaningless sentimentality – an office was just an office, after all – she had just picked up her remaining box of personal items when the sound of two very familiar voices drifted along the corridor and in through her open door. With a sigh and a shake of her head, she dropped the box back onto her desk and turned to perch on the edge of it, arms folded over her chest and waiting for Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee to arrive.

Lewis burst in first, Hathaway half a step behind him. “Ma’am, sorry, I know you’re off now, but just quickly…”

Oh yes, Innocent though with barely-concealed smile, as the two of them launched into yet another convoluted and roundabout discussion on suspects and motivations and Shakespeare, of all things; she really would miss this.


End file.
